Ground Hogs again

We have captured two ground hogs so far this year

Alden is very excited about checking the traps every morning and it is part of our ritual to walk through the backyard before breakfast to make sure everything is in order. It feels very New England.

Elliott does not care much for animals and prefers to pull clumps of grass up and eat what he can.

Baby Possum

The critters are back and so the traps are out again. 

We caught a possum the other week and let it go. Then, the next day we caught a baby possum.

Then we caught the baby possum three more times. He is super cute and pretendes to be fierce by showing us his teeth when we come by the trap.

We always let him go and he walks slowly away into the flowers. I like possums because they eat grubs, but baby possum is getting annoying because we are trying to catch the groundhogs and he keeps getting in the way. Alden is especially fond of the baby possum.

At The National Zoo

We took a trip to the National Zoo with the kids and family. It was the most engaging zoo trip we've taken to date. Most of the animals were really active when we stopped by their pens and many were being fed when we arrived so we got to witness some remarkable behavior.

Elliott liked the colorful animals, especially the marine invertebrates. However, he slept for a good portion of the trip and missed a lot of the really charismatic animals, like the komodo dragon below. We got to see this chap being fed. The keeper basically opened the door a crack and stuck a fish on a stick through the opening. It may not be obvious from this image, but the komodo dragons are huge - about 5 or 6 feet long, and they're really smart. This one clearly was aware that freedom awaited it behind the door, so rather than go for the fish, it crept around the back side of the door (the zookeeper's blindspot) and made a beeline for the opening rather than for the fish on the stick. The caretaker slammed the door shut just in time, leaving the fish behind, where it was swallowed with one nonchalant gulp. The lizard then paced around the viewing window for a good while afterward, sniffing after us with its enormous yellow forked tongue.

Alden had a great time both looking at the animals and in the rest of the zoo environment What's a trip to the zoo if you don't get to climb the aardvark statue?

Alden gravitated toward the stranger animals. He was fascinated by the naked mole rats and also really liked the hissing cockroaches and giant spiders. At the hissing cockroach display, the zoo solicited poems from the viewing public about the cockroaches. Alden came up with this poem on the spot and we loved it so much that we wrote it down and submitted it for him.

The day was cool, but not cold and the sun was bright and cheerful. 

Here are some other animals we liked. 

A lions-eye view of Alden watching from behind the glass. 

One neat thing at the zoo is the zip line that runs from the monkey house to the animal learning center. We were able to watch some Orangutans make the trip from their main house to the "Think Tank" where they get to play puzzles with researchers. 

Oh! Possum

We caught our first opossum today. I don't think they are bad pests, but Alden insisted we name him Julia and take him away. I am thrilled to have a captured a new kind of animal.

I checked online to see how pest-y opossums are... it turns out that they are not too bad. Mostly 'opportunity feeders' (garbage).

2 More Woodchucks, 2 New Skunks

 Varmints in our traps are like Christmas in the summer. Every morning, Alden and I come downstairs to look out the kitchen window and see what we have caught. Since the last reportage, we've caught two groundhogs and two baby skunks.

Alden Theme Song

Alden has taken to including theme music into much of what he does these days. Here he is appreciating the snails and ants he put in his bug-jar. 

3 Groundhogs in three days!

The groundhogs just keep on coming! It seems like they are late in arriving this year.

Skunks 4, Woodchucks 3, Racoons 3, neighbor's cat 1

One more skunk catch and an eventful night when we got this lovely couple brings the trap count up to:
Skunks 4
Woodchucks 3
Racoons 3
Neighbor's Cat 1
All but the neighbor's cat were taken to the beach.

The traps have been quiet for awhile and I hope this will be it for the season

3 skunks

Over the past two day we have captured three skunks in our traps, baiting them with catfood or sausages.

On the first day we got a young skunk

On the second day we got one young skunk and one old one.I transported them all away to the beach. I hope now our bees can sleep in peace and not be so cranky.

Racoon

Not sure if this critter was eating our bees, but he was in our trap, so it was off to Peacock Beach with him.

Angry Bees

We've been amazed at how docile our bees are, even when we're routing around in their house. I've often wondered if they've had too much aggression bred out of them and if they would actually defend themselves against real attackers. That question was answered yesterday.

Kerstin was moving some cinder blocks in the area around the hive as he does every time he mows and was stung 4 times in rapid succession. Luckily Alden was not in the area and Kerstin had the presence of mind to run away like a big sissy. Not so luckily, one of the workers really jammed her stinger into Kerstin's hand, which swelled up like an inflated latex glove on the ring finger and pinky side.
We suspected that the bees were being robbed. This happens when workers from another colony decide that it's better to take honey from a weaker colony than collect their own nectar. The marauders either kill or sneak past the guard bees at the entrance and run roughshod though the hive, ripping open capped comb and stinging those who get in their way. The way to deal with robbing is to reduce the entrance to the hive and trap the offenders inside where they can get their asses handed to them by the angry colony. Kerstin set out the entrance reducer and crammed some grass in the crevices. We were then to wait until nightfall when all the workers would return to the hive and place a wet blanket around the hive, further sealing it and masking the smell of alarm pheromones which attract robbers. However, when we went out last night to put the blanket on, we were met with this:
There was skunk munching away on our poor bees under the hive. No wonder they're so pissed off! We chased the punk away and baited our havaheart trap with cat food (supposedly most attractive to skunks). I've since learned that skunks will scratch at the entrance of a hive to agitate the bees, and then eat them as they come out of the entrance or as they crawl under the screened bottom of the hive. We didn't catch the skunk in our trap last night, but we're going to shut the bees in their hive completely tonight so that the skunk can't get to them and see if we can get it tonight. We may need to lock up our bees at night for a while until we're sure the skunk (or skunks?!) is gone. Lessons learned for next year - put the hives on stands at least 18 inches off the ground so the skunks can't reach them. They're up on cinder blocks for this reason, but we only did 12 inches and it clearly wasn't high enough to protect them. We've also fenced off the underside of the hive with chicken wire so the skunk can't get underneath it.

The trouble is that early fall (i.e NOW) is the time to treat for varroa mites and our bees are much to angry to let us get anywhere near them. Kerstin and I can only work our bees on the weekends, so we had no choice but to medicate while the bees were riled up. For the first time since we've owned bees, we had to suit up completely to approach them and smoked them liberally. Kerstin removed the top two supers, and our livid bees immediately dive bombed us as I fumbled with the pads (we're using Mite Away Quick Strips this year). It seemed to take an eternity to put them down on the frames and close the hive up, but I think it took less than 30 seconds in actuality. I didn't get stung, but Kerstin got stung on a little strip of flesh above his wrist that was exposed by his cuff as he lifted the hive.

Now we know the fury our bees can summon, it makes me appreciate their normally gentle nature that much more. We just need to take care of this *#&ing skunk to get back to baseline.

Groundhog 3

Again with the groundhog.
These creatures are the gift that keeps giving.
Fortunately they have not gotten into the garden yet.

Groundog Revisited

Got another one.
Took him to Peacock Beach with the rest of his family.Alden and I thought this one was particularly fierce.

Batty!

I got a call the other day from Karen, who had this little visitor in her house.

Alden and I raced over to capture the scamp. We plopped him into a tupper-ware container and looked at him for awhile, then let him go outside. Very exciting. In hind sight I should have let him go at my house, I think bats are awesome.

Ground Hog Acquired

Ha! Off to Peacock Beach.

Groundhog Again

I looked out the window this morning to see this trap being flipped over. Next to it was a teen groundhog chewing on some leaves. Alden and I went out to chase him. Alden loved seeing him run. Yep, he got away this time... but we will get him eventually. I reset the trap and baited it with more tasty apples.

2011 Groundhog

Here is the first groundhog of 2011
We noticed activity around some of the holes from last year, suggesting a new brood had arrived. About a week ago we baited the traps and put them out.

The rain and cool weather may have kept them underground until this point, but the sun yesterday and the overcast-but-not-rain day today got them out.
We took this one to Peacock beach as per the tradition. Alden was excited to see that the groundhogs were back and enjoyed taking him to the beach with me. Alden wanted to pet him, but we told him you only pet rabbits, not groundhogs.

Passover 2011 - Trip to the D.C. Zoo

Alden and I did Passover in Maryland at my Uncle Rob's and Aunt Kay's house again this year. Like last year, Kerstin had to teach a class and was unable to join the fun. This was my nephew Levin's first Passover trip and the first time that he and Alden have been old enough to enjoy each others company. They got acquainted by playing on Rob's exercise bike.
We then sallied forth out to the zoo in D.C. We took a train into the city, which both boys thought was pretty great. It culminated in the largest escalator ride that Alden had ever experienced. I think we had to climb about 5 or 6 stories to get back to the surface. Alden's mind was completely blown.
At the zoo, we rented a double buggy for the kids to get around and they had a great time mostly sharing snacks. Alden helped himself to Levin's stash of Cheerios and Goldfish, but made sure to give some back to Levin. "One for me... one for baby Levin". Levin was satisfied with this arrangement, although I'm confident Alden ate more than he shared.We also met up with Alex's (Ben's girlfriend) brother Greg, who has a plush government job giving tours at some big house on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He and his girlfriend April also joined us for the first night of seder. My cousin Sarah was back in the states for a brief respite from her veterinary studies in Scotland.
Alden's favorite animals were the meerkats and tamarins and other little creatures in the Hall of Small Mammals. The bigger animals (lions, apes, elephants, etc.) were a big yawn for him. Levin seemed to be more interested in a wider variety of critters.
At the end of the day, both boys got pretty tired and that's when the squabbling in the buggy began. Alden was banished from his seat when he started hitting Levin, and Levin passed out shortly thereafter so Alden got his place back. He then promptly fell asleep within minutes of the deadline to return the buggy. Luckily, Uncle Ben had the arm and back strength to carry Alden a mile or two uphill back to the train station. Both cousins had great naps on the way home.

My camera ran out of battery life shortly thereafter and since I forgot my charger, I don't have any more images of Passover. I should be receiving more from other family members soon and I'll post them as they come in.